To write
To speak
To express
The communication that forms this mess
One voice that sparks a movement
One voice that seeks to prove it
To prove to you your strength
To speak with you at length
To share with you a story
Of deep sorrow and golden glory
To articulate these things unsaid
To express these thoughts buried deep in my head
I grasp for ears and words
Anyone to listen
Anyone whose heard

I've decided that should anyone
years from now
discover my body
I want them to find me blind-
not from grief and sadness that I saw
but from the beauty my eyes beheld.

I want them to find
the disks in my neck worn-
not from lifting my nose at the inferiority of this place
but rather due to the fact that I was constantly gazing up
simply to remind myself that I get to be a piece in it all.

I want my lips to have trembled, smiled, spoken, gaped
my ears to have listened, to have listened, to have heard
my wrinkles to be evidence of laughter, evidence of worrying

my hands to have been held,
to have fought, grasped
and most importantly to have let go.

When they find me
I want my piercings to be evidence of my interest in pain
and the calm that follows.

I want my body to be riddled in love
agape, philias, eros, storge
I want my scars to be testaments to
my fearlessness, my carelessness,
my courageousness, and my curiosity.

Should they find my spirit gone
should they find my body dead
I want them to know
I want them to know I lived.

the law of conservation of energy states that energy is neither created nor destroyed
it cycles
like hurting
sometimes you get hit
sometimes you get hurt
and other times you're the one doing the hurting
and for as much as it hurts when you're on the receiving end
I'm starting to be convinced that when you're doing the hurting it's twice as bad
because you wish you didn't have to and you wish things were different
all I have to offer anyone else that comes my way is the same pain I got from him so long ago
I wish had something else to give
but I guess that's the way of pain, of hurt, of heartbreak-there's this finite amount out there amongst us and we gotta cycle through it-giving and receiving until hopefully you can escape it, find love, and be good to each other

sweet late morning naps filled with dreams of boys and first and last kisses when every touch still means so much

this is for when
you mean to remember but don't
you want to be there but you won't
and when you're running late
or you've forgotten that we'd made a date
for when you're meaning well
or when I'm upset or hurting and you can't tell
when you want to find a way to fix what once was missed
you don't know what it is you've done wrong
for when we fall asleep listening to heartbreak songs
this is for when you can't come through
like you sometimes tend to do

it's ok
because I know that you will make it right
I know what we have is worth the fight
I know (even when you don't) that you're a good man
I know you're doing everything you can
You would never intentionally make my cry
and if you were in proximity, you'd never just stand by
You're trying so hard to always do it all
and sometimes in the juggling act I'm the one that falls
it's ok this time around again
because before we were "us", we were friends
and I know you better than to get caught up with petty fights
I know when I deserve better and I know when what I've got is right

in the spinning circles of mass disorder
and the emotions that run rampant

in the inconsistency of the love I deserve
and the ones who want to love me but can't yet

in the influences that taint my blood and mind and will
the caffeine, the smoke, the alcohol that sits for days distilled

in the fluidity of these numbered days
and memories only made beautiful because they're gone

in the never ending collapsing of one thing into the next
with my bewildered mind never escaping from itself to get some rest

Within the whirlwind that is my life right now I am anchored, I am humbled, I overflow with gratitude that in all the inconsistency He waits for me the same.  The sameness in His presence; the unchanging, unwavering, unalterable presence that is Him.
He will always love me; always forgive me.
He waits.
And in the shakiness of growing up, He gives me stability.

I'm still shaking
like I did in the field
and at the gazebo
and in the first few seconds when I get in your car
when the cold air is still so desperate to seep below our surface
and lately I've been thinking
I won't ever stop shaking
from this unique and horrible cold
-this cool reminder that you are so far from me

to fill a hole
fix what's broken
say what needs to be said
and leave unnecessary explanations unspoken
we're seeking the same thing
to simplify our lives
wrap up in what we used to be
find it fabricated in lies
you want my insight
but I gave all of me to all of you a long time ago
and while you're missing me
I'm letting you go
let's not complicate this further than need be
let's keep it simple and let it leave
on terms its own
that we can't conceive
you should have had some foresight
you should've known I couldn't always wait
I'm not one of your fish
I'm not going for the bait
It suddenly feels like it's been so long
since I felt lied to
since I felt wronged
I don't miss you like I once did
and it gets a lot easier with most of the passing time
and I harbor less resentment for you now
looking forward to having you in my life again down the line

the sickly soft and sentimental sensations of yesteryears seep into the sequentially searing scars of last nights mistakes
and the smoke simultaneously serenades my soft tissue into sorrow soaked sleepless sunday mornings
and we silently seek solace in the safe haven of wordless songs

I've done things on my own
gotten to relearn pieces of me regrown
I'm still making up for the way things were
finding the girl I was when I was her
boy, do you miss me yet?
I'm making myself proud
I've found my voice, I'm getting loud
And I'm not quite there but I'm en route
haven't yet attained it but I'm in hot pursuit
boy, do you miss me yet?
and of all the pieces of you that fell away
the music we shared just seems to stay
it stays and stays, won't go away
it won't diminish, it won't decay
boy, do you miss me yet?
And just like I used to listen to you singing in your car
I can hear you forgetting me, tires kissing tar
it's been two solid years and I need to know
boy, will you ever let me go?

when he doesn't remember
when he doesn't text or call
when he doesn't think of me
when he doesn't think at all

when he doesn't miss me
when he doesn't let me know
when he doesn't say how he feels
I fear he's letting go

professor told me the chemicals and minerals in this paint could leach toxins into my skin if I let it stay on the surface there
but the way I see it I've picked my poison
either it's paint on my skin or you on my mind

the bounding bouncing onward downward trail of the decent
(falling)
coming down, down, back, back with our pack packs
back to the earth
to lower elevation
to safety?
the return
coming back
switch back in the path
going back
sliding back
to how things were
how I miss the summit

my words are spent
my tears are shed
but now I lay awake
revisions in my head

what could I have said
to prevent the inevitable
were the words I gave you not loud enough?
was the handwriting illegible?

I don't write these words to hurt you
I don't say these things to make you cry
I just fall to pieces here
helplessly I stand by

I'll love you because you taught me how to run
You used to run by my side
But now I run from you, with half the strength, twice the speed
I don't know if I was always broken and it just surfaced
or if I was, in fact, whole before you
I'd love to blame everything on you but something runs deep inside me that didn't want to trust even before  you
granted, you confirmed my fears
I wonder if you still think about me and if you do I wonder why you don't reach out.  I wonder if it's hard anymore
It's already been so long and we're both only getting older
And while time can be healing, I think for us, it's sealing the grave that was our relationship
I wonder what happens to the love we had
I wonder if you still ever worry about me
I wonder if you care
Because I still miss you and I'll never let you know
I miss summer baseball games, playing short stop, you yelling from the sidelines
I miss road tripping back with you and talking about nothing
I miss how smart you made me feel
but mostly I miss how proud I made you
They don't warn you how when someone believes in you, encourages you, enables you, loves you
That they can take it all away when they leave
I don't know how or when or what I did to let you down
to make you let me go
I know I started running from you long before you let go
But I ran because I never expected you to quit
I never expected you to stop running after me

she and I run to and from the waves
like little kids at play
at a beach on a sickeningly sweet day

we run toward the ocean and get swept up in the tide
these fickle boys that sway our life

you're always there for me when the salt water licks my wounds
and I promise I'm there for you now-even if we can't be in the same room

I guess a storm came in and made us go inside
the lightening made you cry, the thunder made you hide

but summer will come in the nick of time
you'll lay under the sunshine
with a healed heart and a free mind

Don't allow me to lean on you
Don't answer when I call you out of the blue

Stop asking me questions
Stop finding ways to let me know you care
When I dry my eyes and turn around
Please promise me you won't be there

He came before and after you
So it's not fair to stick around
And make a mess of what you left of me
I thought I left you when I left town

You know full well I care for him
So if you truly care for me
Stop pretending that you've changed
Stop speaking of this elusive "we"

the overlap of my headphones playing music and the coffeehouse music behind that with conversation of the strangers around me within that and the growing louder wind hidden below that deafens a clarity and silence to which I have not been exposed.  Maybe it's the espresso but more things make sense for now

I'm not going anywhere
my time with him is cemented and fluid in my mind
it runs through my veins and steins my every thought

wake up to the sound of your fleeting heart
and all the bands you show me and books you recommend, they reserve a special folder in my thoughts and in my soul
and even the things that are mine-the things I share with you-they are no longer completely mine
the smell of you lingers on these things that once defined me

where am I gonna land if I fall for you?
I think it's been happening and I was too scared to admit it.  Because these things are so fragile and if I say it out loud maybe it will evaporate like warm air on cool Maine mornings and the cool will be too much for words so soft.  And once they turn into silvery swirls of reality-I will only catch a glimpse that they were real after all and they would be gone permanently

like a river flows surely to the sea
I know this life is flowing
and I know many things we must find peace with
I know often times the river forces us along and we must let go of things never meant to be
But I'm not ready to let you go
and I'm ready to fight the current
but I'm secretly hoping it's pulling for us

can I be close to you
and for everything that night was, for all the beautiful moments we shared, my favorite was lying there because I could hear your heartbeat and it was racing.  For the first time ever you weren't composed or mysterious or unknown. For the first time ever you were exposed and raw and I could see it in everything about you...you were scared too.

moonlight through the pines
so when I come back this time I just need to remember your smile and I am comforted because when I think of you smiling, I am reminded that I am coming home.

of all the people I'd hoped it'd be you*
and so the two of us laid there and tried to figure out how to be one.
I fell asleep to the sweet melodies that had promised me you so many times.  And everything was perfect because I woke up to the last song on the album which was my favorite.  I thought I would wander back into the beautiful sleep that had only just recently relinquished me from its soft and consuming grasp.  But then you did what you do.  You turned and kissed me.  And it was a goodnight kiss.  But it wasn't a goodbye kiss.

I wake up and put it around my neck
something someone gave me once when they loved me
and while it is sweeter and more nostalgic now
while it is no longer burning or complicated
it's still warm and now I can just find it comforting
how sweet

spring runs at night
when the air feels like summer night air
air that's been warmed up by the sun and then left to be consumed by stars and darkness
it always reminds me of night swimming
in summer night water
because you hit these patches of cold and warm when the air or water can't decide which it will concede to in the time of transition

Herds of sea monsters licking at my toes and they tell me it's just seaweed dad handing me the fishing pole "3,2,1 jump!" Grandma sitting on the dock with me, her toes in the lake and she'd laugh and squeal so loudly it held a weight all its own it echoed, carries, drifted like pollen dust and covered my childhood coated the surface of the lake, settled among the crevasses of the fire pit and buried deep into the particles of my still damp towel unsure of how to care what day or time it is or whether my clothes are on right side out only the certainty that I will jump in the water and dry under the sun a gazillion times before the day's end deep green dew covered grass, sweet light green stems, the seeds and bruises of all the backyard fruit bruises on me too and splinters bee stings cuts and slippery band-aids that don't stand a chance against today's adventures when any and everything we wonder about is on our block walking running skipping distance in dirt and sap soaked flip flops til we abandon shoes altogether (unable to keep up with us) we go onward barefoot and raw like writing this all flowing into each other because it's the only honest way to do it

The words of pages you lent me steal my thoughts and consume my helpless mind, my helpless heart.  
My helpless heart still loves you and you didn't know.
You didn't know that was the last time I'll see you for some time.
Some time apart is all I can do because I can't do this anymore.
I can't do this anymore and I didn't tell you.
I didn't tell you that I can't afford your presence.
I can't afford to sit by while the seconds count the times you break my heart.
My heart can't take the conversations we have.
The conversations we have can't stop hinting at the future we might have had.
The future we might have had consumes my helpless mind, my helpless heart.

let's sit across from each other
lay down our weapons and shields consisting of words and see what the silence makes of us
see what truths surface
maybe we'll stifle a laugh at first-
a natural awkward reaction to the taboo act of staring at someone without reason or explanation
to look directly into someones eyes to (if nothing else) reassure them of  their own existence
to remind them that they are seen
and so pass the first thirty seconds
two hundred and ten more beautiful horrible seconds that unfold themselves between us
and once they past we are again allowed access to the gift that is expression
to communicate, talk, listen, laugh, cry, ask, answer

but what if when the silence ended
when the honesty presented itself?
when we were stripped bare; made simple?
what if after all the wordlessness and contemplation there was nothing left to say?

I need to break the trailhead and sweat the sadness through
the pores and holes and missing pieces of me that let it in for you
I'm forever shaking from exposure to the elements;
this irreversible coldness resulting from your negligence
I can't go on like this; so very different from who I used to be
I'm scared of who I will become if I don't soon recover the old me
I'm in search of steeper trails to bring me closer to
the clearer, blissful, happier me I was before my soul made room for you

he walks around suburban streets afraid of breaking things; toys, bones, lives
she sees herself as the problem because that's all her mother ever yelled at her within paper thin new development plaster
they get it implanted deep inside them somewhere along the way that everything they touch is tainted and I don't know how to enable them to see the radiance that is exuded by the things they presumabely ruin

night hiking:
pro:
-if you're at a steep part of the trail, your headlamp will only illuminate what's in front of you-there's no knowing when it will stop being so hard and so the leveling of the ground beneath your feet is more often that not a welcomed friend rather than a long anticipated and frustratingly far relief
con:
-while ignorance can be bliss, missing out on the view can be a ******

day hiking:
pro:
-the flood of light is intoxicatingly beautiful and you can see everything around you in the incandescent sunlight.  No illusions
con:
-no illusions

One more season we pass through
Remaining me, remaining you
While some things never change
Others are set in an opposite motion
Hurtling continuously, inevitably, inherently toward "change"
I know we'll never be the same now just as we will never be who we were at the end of summer. But winter is coming and spring and I can't we to see who we become. Who we've been. Who we are. I'm fine with change so long as you remain constant in this change with me. Love you dearly, love you often. Happy months happy time happy season

"Hanging a song on another wind
It was timeless and timed all the same
These words are a blessing a breaking away away
And all of the stories of why you came, they get prettier every time
You are something special you sing the way we sigh
And  I thought about changing my name and then moving far away
And wherever you are I know you feel the same
And love is a pattern of drifting wood in its own kind of watery smile
Who hides with the maker of night and stays a child
And saving the best of what's left of ya for the one who has stolen your seat
And too many questions will grind away your teeth
And I thought of the sun goin down over there and thank it for the day
And wherever you are I know you feel the same
The longer we're standing here breathlessly are we making a bigger mistake?
By taking the matter at hand into the grave?
But wouldn't you want to know anyway?
Where your heart was just dying to go?
And hope is a whittling down of what you know
And I thought about something we might have said about doing whatever it takes
And wherever you are I know you feel the same
The colors you drew in the country air
Like a willing and shattering fire
Too hard were the benches, too cold for your desires
And tell me again what you're doing these days with that beautiful, curious face
The lines of your memory are breaking away away
And I thought about nothing particular and down came the rain
And wherever you are I know you feel the same
And wherever you are I know you feel the same"

the night recedes and so enables the day

    push and pull: the struggle that creates the fabric
       the fabric that sifts through the liquid moments
          the moments that remain over time

               the people that change the mind
                the mind that changes the thoughts
               the thoughts that change the one

       the water roars toward the shore, swift and strong
    the water glides back to its mass, apologetic and sullen

the day recedes and so enables the night

I resent the moon and stars and the clouds that allow them to glow
The hot cold air and transition-dusk
Once filled me
Inspired and cooled the heat and sun and reality that encompassed the day
Nighttime meant love songs and promises and dreams
And dreams
But now that the nights weigh more than the dense days
Since you've filled my head and heart and left them heavy with concern
All I can do is worry and analyze and occupy my nights with day dreams of the nights I dreamt of you and you only

Why do we so long for that which we do not know?  Why is it the knowing, the safety, and the comfort drain us and the only way to fill up and live again is to be fighting and scared and so consumingly unsure?
Why does she go looking for trouble in all the right places?
And why are some days so very much heavier than others?
The light ones almost seem to drift away in the memory taunting the mind to recall whether they were real at all or just existent in the crevasse between sleep and dreaming where all misplaced and beautiful horrible things go to linger a while

Lying in your room we stop time.
Any other time and place we are left sinking through seconds toward our fate but we float late nights in your room trapped in the amber.

 The fluid and constant second hand clicking away our time together on your wrist, is silenced by our breathing.

And in the presence of each other, encompassed in the company, and engrossed in the solidarity that comes with being together, we don't allow the night to end.

But last night it did.

Our perfect night was finally penetrated by the tick, tick, ticking reality that so desperately sought to break in and rob us of our unwarranted and unrealistic happiness and sense of safety.

I've been sinking back into old familiar negative spaces
Missing him is home and I've felt so nostalgic tracing fingertips along the abandoned walls of the place
Missing him was not once such an empty promise, but rather a means to an end.  The end came and left but the missing didn't.
I'm letting myself miss him once again, this once more

I'll never be more disappointed in the words
Their job is to conglomerate into cohesive, coherent expressions
Always, they've done this for me
True, their message has changed
But their capacity to carry out meaning, order, and a clear, articulate thought has been unwavering
But I turn to them now and they are clumsy, weak, light, and foreign
I fumble on these useless and tiresome words as I think up a way to communicate to you just what it is you mean to me
I love you
Is white noise
Every combination is an understatement
Photos can't capture it
My paintings can't replicate it
This love demands to be felt and that is all I can do
With every intracacy and nuance of my existence, every book I ever read, every lesson I've ever learned, everything I was, am, and will be, ever aspect of my being, every ounce of my soul, all that I have
Because I can't translate it to words, I will have to suffice in keeping it in it's rawest form
And while I will never be able to express it to consummation,
I feel so wholely and genuinely in love with you

this once more I think summers coming soon
and she'll offer nostalgia to heal these persistent wounds
with softer winds
for paling skin
and empty promises full of good intentions
she'll preach to me unlearnable lessons
she'll take me deeper into the hot cold night
out of mind out of sight
when things don't need answering
and I'm most in tune with her being
It's just like you said this time last year
"Don't worry, I think summers almost here"

now we are
where we were
where we always should have been

we've come back here
to try again
to be now who we were then

Crash break sleep take
My heart and make it your's too
One in the same, melt, weld, stain
All my thoughts and memories and love
Melt into all the forms of love that I give and receive, ebb and flow
you and I
Til that's all that I know
So encompassing
Promising taunting and teasing
Miss me kiss me and stay just a little longer for a little while once again and again the day after and again and again
I will always want to play with you
To chase you
I will always love you for making me this way
For showing me it was there all along
For helping me discover a part of me I didn't know existed

I wake up to the glow of sun shining through curtains and blinds
I stretch my body
stretch my mind
I'm preparing for the day ahead
waiting for it all to start as I lay in bed
I find my muscles sore
the good kind of sore you get when you're not bored
when your mind is stimulated
and your heart has been elated
and your back hurts from rowing
your legs from running, you arms from throwing
the restlessness of spirit that wakes within me in the glow
mind, body, spirit; I'm recharged, ready to go

I hope between dreams
You hear my breath breaking the cold night air

I hope in slumber  
You feel my nail edges tracing your mysterious skin; warm and bare

I hope in that evening sleep
You turn and smell my tangled hair

I hope some nights you wake up
And if only for a moment, forget that I'm not there

"please beware in a mysterious way God is here
please beware he's your pity
he's your pain
he's your fear
please remember my son that I taught you as much
it is God who will take you from here"

Have you ever tried to run with any kind of baggage?
Maybe it was the airport and you were late for your flight
Maybe it was a purse
or a backpack
or groceries
if you have then
You know the agitating experience of not having full range of motion to get were you're going
You know the gnawing temptation to put down whatever it is you're carrying
Only I can't put him down
I can't let him go
and it's a hindrance not to where I'm going
but rather where it is I've been trying so desperately to leave

"'Help,' he said, 'is giving a part of yourself to someone who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly. So it is,' he said, using an old homiletic transition, 'that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don't know what part to give or maybe we don't like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed. It is like the auto-supply shop over town where they always say, 'Sorry, we are just out of that part.'"

Young nameless girl wandered between lost and found. She applied her makeup mask too heavily on her faceless face and spent timeless times waiting for careless boy to care.

Lying there I've never been more filled with words
Words that mostly formed questions
But I didn't want to soil the moment in questions that would inevitably surface answers
The ceiling whirled with specks of light; stars
And they beckoned us to lie beneath them in the murmur of our breathing and heartbeats
And the stars sat in the absence of words with us

What if fate forgot about us?
In the grand scheme of things she forgot to intertwine our broken lives
What if this isn't how it was supposed to end but
We slipped through the cracks and there's no going back?

I can feel my heart rate slowing
my thoughts caught between going a million miles a minute and lounging in the tempered water of those smarter than me
I am simultaneously comforted and overstimulated by this modern artist who attempts to explain himself in a media foreign to him: words
His reality exists in color fields and weathered linen
In re-stretched canvas and the gentle pull of paint layering itself before him in a matter so beautiful that he's afraid to **** it-ignoring the fact that he's bringing it into existence
To see his work and grasp a whisp of what it is he is trying to convey
This is my drug of choice
To be drunk on the sobering reality that we equally overthink the merging of memories and hapinstances and movement; light and shadow, tints tones and hues, a balance between respect for what the art is trying to do and trying all the while to control it in a manner that it may capitalize on its investment in itself-on our investment
of time, of thought, of failures its taken to get here, of learning
Why would I go searching for something to stimulate my mind when it's nearly 3AM and I can't get it to stop?  Nor do I desire to make it stop
May I be strung out on this gift all the days of my life

I harbor a profound appreciation for humans out there in the world that shatter the silence.  If you've met or heard of them-if you've shared an environment, a conversation, a moment.  There are people in this world that don't speak for the sake of speaking, to be heard by others, or even themselves.  They don't seek to fill the silence.  Rather the silence holds a mass all it's own and the spilling of their words into the already filled space causes this overflow-this unrest in the space occupied.  Their thoughts and sounds and words drop like smoothed stones into a body of silenced water-with rippling affects seemingly infinite.  They acknowledge that silence and expression are not juxtaposed but would in fact be non existent without the other.  Silence and there lack of.